Great Western Coffee Shop

Newton Abbot - Paddington

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l50/liamy_2006/img014.jpg)


And compare that to the fares of today!
FOR ^314
SOR ^202

As I have said before Advance is cheaper, Turn up and go fares dearer than they were a few years ago as the above example shows.

Bit off topic but still fares related. Tomorrow will see trains running every 20 minutes between London-Birmingham/Manchester which is EXCELLENT. Not only that Virgin are offering Advance fares to these destinations starting at just ^5.50/^8.50 which again is EXCELLENT.

My point is that running every 20 minutes makes no difference if to get the cheapest fares you still have to book in advance. Surely the point of running every 20 minutes should be to promote a good value turn up and go rail system because of the extra capacity you could offer cheaper turn up and go fares at off-peak times.

And Open Return fares from Birmingham to London are cheaper per mile than Bristol to London, and you get more trains and faster services.   

I'm assuming that they believe the service frequency and capacity will be so much better, many more pax will be prepared to pay for Off Peak tickets during the middle of the day. They are still fairly well priced especially for railcard holders.  Pax who want a balance between cheap fares and flexibility on the BHM route will have LM to fall back on as well...

Paul

More trains increase the availiabilty of Advance fares and obviously compare favourably to flying

Chiltern already offer ^5 Advance London to B'ham ticket, and LM are starting ^5 advance tickets today also!

So that's three ways of getting from B'ham to London for a fiver!

I think the fares in D/M's leaflet are fairer - no huge walk on fares, no ridiculously cheap advance.

Birmingham - London SVR is very reasonable at ^39.50 with a service every 20 minutes IMO!

Compare with Bristol - London with 4 services per hour (2 TM, 2 PW) for ^49!

Also, if Virgin wanted to fill even more seats, they could still produce an SOP fare as well, AFAICS?
Or how about an Advance that tied you down to any train in a particular hour? Pax might pay a few quid more for that, they won't know unless they try it...

Paul

4 services per hour is more than every 20 mins......

But the choice for any passenger is every half hour, given the stations are several miles apart. So it doesn't feel like a 4 trains ph service. 

The cheapest walk-on fare has increased ^18 in 4 years due to the scrapping of the Super Saver.  Was there any reason for scrapping the Super Saver ticket?

I'm "subject to correction" here, but I understand that the official reason is that they were scrapped to make way for even cheaper fares, although the cheaper ones were to be book-ahead rather than bookable on the day.  I seem to recall being told that there would have been just too many different fares on offer (and as I think there are still far too many fares on offer, I would agree with that latter motive)

The other comment I heard was that it was thought that by moving buy-on-the-day customers up from supersaver to saver, few customers would actually be lost and income would be increased. Furthermore, the intent of spreading the peak further by having "very off-peak" supersavers wasn't actually influencing many people's buying decision.  So in other words it was a way of putting prices up.

Spot on with the problem I wonder how Virgin TMs are going to cope with all the people who get on the wrong train because it's the London train.not realising they are booked on the one after.  Casual travellers tend to arrive at the station in plenty of time "just to make sure".


I think an advanced with choice of 3 trains  is an  excellent idea you'd have to forgo a seat reservation but that shouldn't be a problem. Coffee Shop should put it forward.

Which has just bought up another anolmoly I've just thought of which may be posted elesewhere.

If you book in advancw you get a cheap fare and seat reservation. If you book 10 minutes before departure you pay a heavy price and aren't guarenteed a seat even in first class. Something wrong there, I would suggest that has a wiff of dishonesty about it.

The benefit of book in advance tickets to the TOC though is that they can control how many people are on each train.  By having them valid on 3 trains you have the potential of a packed train full and standing and 2 almost empty trains.

I'm "subject to correction" here, but I understand that the official reason is that they were scrapped to make way for even cheaper fares, although the cheaper ones were to be book-ahead rather than bookable on the day.  I seem to recall being told that there would have been just too many different fares on offer (and as I think there are still far too many fares on offer, I would agree with that latter motive)


They were scrapped because they were not a regulated fare.  ie TOC's could put the fare up by as much as they wanted.  Obviously they could not go above the price of a saver because then there would be no point in buying the supersaver.  This did happen once on long distance Virgin Cross Country fares and a special supplement had to be issued to correct the anomoly !!

Over time each TOC scrapped them by making the Super saver fare the same price as the saver fare so there was no longer any need for it.  To give FGW their due they were almost the very last TOC to abolish it a when the new franchise started a couple of years ago.  I think virgin were one of the first but I could be wrong.

To Manchester and Scotland yes

You cant fly London to Brum - many times I wish I could have done it in reverse.

e.g. 930 am translatlantic from LHR - oh for a BHX shuttle........